Investors exiting stocks at faster clip

U.S. stock mutual funds lost $1.8 billion during the week ended June 13, according to the Investment Company Institute. (Last week, investors only pulled out $620 million.) Tallying it up, that means investors have withdrawn money from the stock market for 17 of the past 18 weeks.

For the month of May, investors yanked out $9.62 billion from stock mutual funds, up from an outflow of $5.86 billion in April. That's not all that surprising, considering May was the worst month in two years for stocks. Overall, outflows for the month totaled $10.09 billion, versus inflows of $23.16 billion in April.

Interestingly, even with three straight weeks of outflows, stocks have had a pretty decent June. The S&P 500 (SPX), Nasdaq (COMP) and Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) are on track to end the month with gains of 1% or more.

But with a European summit underway, worries about Spain's and Italy's solvency front and center, and concern over Greece's efforts to renegotiate its bailout, investors will have more agita to deal with before things calm down.

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Since the beginning of the year, investors have pulled $58 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds. By comparison, these funds brought in $6.4 billion during the first five months of 2011 and lost just $18 billion during the first five months of 2010.

Hybrid funds, which invest in both stocks and bonds, gained $1.2 billion during the second week of June, building on the prior week's $968 million inflow. Taking the middle road has been good for hybrid funds, which have enjoyed inflows for much of 2012.

Catherine Tymkiw is a news editor at CNNMoney where she helps oversee breaking news coverage and futures planning. Previously, she was the investing editor. Prior to joining CNNMoney, she was the online editor at Crain's New York Business and has nearly two decades of reporting and editing experience. She tweets @ctymkiwcnn